


First Contact

by nbarker1990



Category: The Voice (US) RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 21:36:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9626636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nbarker1990/pseuds/nbarker1990
Summary: In this universe, maybe things start before emails and texts, before red chairs and admissions to producers. Maybe they start when she's there for him when nobody else is.





	

She’s come all the way from Texas to talk to him, and maybe he should be grateful she’s (finally) making some effort. Instead he tells her “too little, too late” and closes the door in her face. When he re-opens it fifteen minutes later, the only sign that his wife had been in his drive is some skid marks. He wonders if she’d been drinking and then hates himself for thinking so little of her. Miranda’s made some reckless (“putting it mildly,” his mom would say, a forced smile on her face) choices lately, but he’s pretty sure she knows better than that.

 

Then again, he was pretty sure she wouldn’t cheat him on. Again.

 

The next morning, Blake comes to with a hangover reminiscent of some barely remembered days on the road from his early-twenties. He doesn’t even have the fun memories that accompanied those as a result, though, just regret and tears and a whole shitload of self-pity.

 

“Christ,” he mutters, turning his face to the side and taking in a deep breath, because suffocating to death on one of her old pink cushions (because maybe making his place more ‘home-y’ would entice her to LA more) would be too much irony even for him. He can smell his own bad breath and when he tries to take in his surroundings, the wooziness gets to him again. “Godgodgodgodgod.”

 

When he next wakes up, the lights are on, something smells like slightly overcooked fish, and he’s staring at about fifty unopened texts and twelve missed calls on his cell phone. He deletes them all without a second glance, and reaches for the bottle of water on the floor next to the couch. God provides.

 

Then he hears humming. Not God, then. Or Adam, he realizes, as he hears the person in his kitchen cursing the air blue.

 

“Damned counter, why’d ya gotta be so hard?” Then the noise of shoes hitting the floor. Not Miranda, either. “Calm down, Gwen, calm down. Last thing he needs is you making it worse.”

 

Ah.

 

Maybe if he wasn’t slowly dying from alcohol poisoning, he’d be interested in what the hell Gwen Stefani was doing in his house, but honestly, he can’t muster up the energy. He falls asleep to the sound of The Cure, wondering if the rest of her iPod playlist is as effortlessly cool as her.

 

* * *

 

 

“Gotta keep still, okay.” Her voice is soft and soothing and he finds himself tempted to behave like a puppy, wanting to flip over and show his belly so it can be scratched. Well, not his belly exactly, but he sure wouldn’t mind if her long, slender fingers kept stroking his hair. Humbling thought. “I didn’t know if I should wake you up, but I managed to make dinner?”

 

Blake smiles. “I smelled the fish earlier. Left some for me?”

 

Her laugh sounds a little brittle. Frowning, he cracks open an eye, peers blearily at her. Gwen’s dressed more casually than he’s ever seen her before, a crushed black tank top over a pair of baggy jeans. He finds himself wondering if her toenails are painted. Miranda always liked when he’d do that for her.

 

Black, he confirms, looking down.

 

“I…” She pauses uncomfortably, shifts her weight on the edge of the couch where she’s sitting. If he wanted to, he could reach out and touch her. “They didn’t turn out so well...”

 

She looks close to tears and he hates that so much, suddenly finds a lump in his throat. Pretty sure he’s still on some kind of emotional break after last night’s non-confrontation, he takes her hand in his, lowers it to one of the cushions surrounding him.

 

The next minute or two reminds him of what it felt like before he found out about everything. It hadn’t been all bliss, of course, but there hadn’t been that almost overwhelming sense that he was slowly moving towards his entire life falling apart. Gwen squeezes, and he squeezes back. He doesn’t mind admitting that he’s a tactile sort of guy, quick to hug, quick to kiss, quick to simply rest a hand on the back of a friend.

 

“Not gonna let go just yet,” he insists quietly when he first feels her fingers slipping away from his. Her consternation is pretty clear, but what’s clearer is the knowledge that the moment she leaves him alone, he’s going to end up drunk and miserable again. He’s greedy, wants to hold off on that for as long as possible. “Thank you.” Her smile is still wobbly, but he’s struck by the sudden determination that crosses her features.

 

“Gavin and I aren’t together anymore.”

 

He isn’t sure why she’s telling him, and he’s even less sure why his automatic response is a tightening in his chest, an awareness of how much he wants to just, well, hold her close to him.

 

When he does just that, when he moves further back on the couch, pats the space in front of him, he’s all too aware that Gwen’s likely to simply scoff, to turn him down flat. Instead, he finds himself with her warm body pressed up against his front, one of his arms around her, their hands joined on her stomach.

 

“You wanna talk about it?” he asks. “Easier without having to look at my ugly mug.”

 

“Shut up, Blake. I _always_ thought you were handsome, y’know.” It’s an admission of sorts, or that’s how it comes across. The devil in him wants it recorded, wants to play it over and over and over again for Miranda, prove to her that _some_ people like him, think he’s worth waiting for. Not that that’s what Gwen means, of course, but… “Did YOU want to talk about it?”

 

“Seems like you and I are on parallel paths is all. My soon-to-be ex-wife came here last night, wanted me to forgive her, go to counseling. I hadn’t realized that it wouldn’t be the cheating that hurt the most, but the fact that she actually fell in love with someone else. Weird, right?”

 

“It’s a different kind of betrayal, maybe. Gavin never loved anyone else. Just fucked them.”

 

“Adam never mentioned that you were getting a divorce. We were literally only talking about you last week.”

 

“He doesn’t know. Or Pharrell. Or Carson. Just family and a couple of friends and, well - ”

 

“Me,” Blake says, finishing her sentence.

 

“Yeah, you... I mean, I’m going to have to say it out loud soon to everyone and the tabloids are gonna know and it’s just like actual hell on earth, right?”

 

_Can we just stay here in this room forever, instead?_

 

He doesn’t ask, however, doesn’t give breath to such a ridiculous thought. She wriggles a little, adjusts her shirt where it’s riding up under their hands, and for a second he can feel Gwen’s skin.

 

Lightning.

 

It’s almost ten o’clock when he finally moves. He’s been itching to go pee for over an hour now, but hasn’t wanted to leave the comfort of their little makeshift bed. She’d fallen asleep on him before he’d worked up the nerve ask the hows and whys of her even being in his rental in the first place, and maybe that was a good thing. Sometimes knowledge isn’t desirable, turns out.

 

As he tries to manoeuver his way over her body without disturbing her, he’s stopped in his tracks by her soft little moan of protest, her small hand gripping his crumpled shirt where a button is missing. Christ almighty, she… Well, she makes him want things he can never have, things he shouldn’t even BE wanting considering he’s only in this situation because his marriage is imploding.

 

“Stay,” she pleads, a sleepy rasp in her voice.

 

“Darlin’, unless you want me to piss my pants, you’re gonna have to let go. I’ll be right back.” She frowns, her brows furrowing adorably as one eye squints up at him where he hovers over her. “Promise.”

 

When he returns, she’s laid out on the couch like a starfish, her limbs stretched out in all directions and her face mashed into the pillow he was using. Chuckling to himself, he goes back to the bathroom and brushes his teeth, even has a quick shower, for good measure. She’s seen him at his worst now, but still…

 

“You changed,” she says with a smile when he comes back, her back now propped up and her arms slung around her slim knees. She looks adorable, frankly.

 

“And you haven’t. Did you, did you need to get home or - ” The conversation is stilted in a way it wasn’t earlier in the evening, and he resents that. It’s still dark in the house, the moon barely shining through the gaps in his blinds, but the memory of how they’d been curled up together like lovers (or something close) is clouding his mind to proprieties and normalcy and everything except his wanting.

 

He sees the moment she banishes the thought in her head and chooses what words need to be spoken. “Nah, I’m good here. The boys, they’re with their dad tonight.” She hunches a little, and he can’t stop himself for sitting down next to her and putting an arm around her. “He moved out?”

 

“Sort of. It’s kind of fucked up, actually. He’s been living in our guesthouse and now he’s staying there half a week and in some apartment nearby for the other half.”

 

“Acclimatization, I think it’s called. When it comes to climbing mountains or whatever, anyway.”

 

Gwen reaches for him, the pads of her fingers soft against his scruff as her thumb presses to his lips. “Hush, you. I’m trying to be serious here.”

 

“Ah, but being serious doesn’t make you smile like THAT.”

 

Rolling her eyes, she slaps him lightly on the arm, allowing herself to fall back against his chest in a single smooth move. “You always make me smile like that, dork.”

 

“I try,” he admits. She twists in his embrace, her eyes wide but smiling, and he feels that _thing_ in his chest tighten again. It’s so wrong, but… “Why’d you come?” he eventually asks, suddenly needing to know as much as he’s needed anything. Because if she –

 

Gwen shrugs, and he feels the movement against his own arm. “S’what friends do, right?”

 

It’s the right answer, the correct one, but it leaves him feeling strangely bereft. Which is dumb, totally dumb. Sighing, he lets his head drop, finding that dip next to her neck and making himself comfortable there. She doesn’t stiffen at the contact and maybe that’s a good sign or maybe it’s just her feeling as at sea as he does right now.

 

“I was worried,” she adds. “Adam texted me, told me he was concerned about you but couldn’t come check on you. So I kinda offered. Not like there was a party at my house or anything that was keeping me busy…”

 

“If there had been?”

 

“I would’ve come anyway.”

 

It turns out she’d made him an omelette. “Edible,” he rates it after finishing every last bite, laughing out loud (and it feels good to laugh again) when her nose scrunches up in distaste.

 

“Better than what I ended up having then,” Gwen admits, before taking the plate back to the kitchen and quickly rinsing it. He can hear her rustling around in there and he closes his eyes, wants to memorize her presence.

 

They say goodnight at his door, a jacket slung over one of her arms and a bag over the other.

 

“Hey,” she says, awkwardly leaning in for a hug. “I’ll see you in a few weeks. It’ll be good.”

 

“Trying to convince me or yourself?”

 

She sways a little in his embrace and he doesn’t think he imagines the way she tenses at his words, before relaxing when his hand runs down her back. He loves her hair loose like this, catches up a strand between his fingertips and curls it.

 

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to - ” Blake breaks off on a sigh, finds himself choking on the words ‘Please don’t leave’ as she readjusts the jacket in her arms. He takes it from her, puts it down. Looking confused, she puts a hand to his chest and he wonders if he can hear how fast his heart is beating. “Thank you. For everything.”

 

“Adam has my email address. If you wanted to, well, if you ever want to talk – or just rant – I’d be happy to listen.”

 

He blinks, can’t and doesn’t want to stop grinning at her – GWEN STEFANI, for god’s sake – offering up her time. For him.

 

“I meant it before,” she continues, taking a deep breath. “About how handsome you are. Total babe,” she says, and her cheeks are a little flushed. He’s so busy cataloguing the color in his mind that he’s taken aback when her lips meet his. He takes a step back as Gwen’s body surges into his with a forcefulness he only associates with her onstage persona.

 

“Mmmff,” he manages to say against her lips before his mind goes completely and utterly blank. For long seconds, they kiss, skipping light and sweet pecks, and diving in straight at the deep end – tongues tangling, low groans, urgent and sloppy attempts to get closer. It’s only when he realizes that the door’s still wide open and his hand is _that_ close to baring her breast to the night air, that he pulls back, their lips separating with a wet pop.

 

Gwen stares at him for a long moment and he stares right back, still shocked.

 

“I - ” he stutters, knowing he probably looks a mess, bug-eyed and crazed. She gives him a hesitant smile and steps back out of his embrace. “I - ”

 

“Please don’t say you’re sorry,” she urges, her voice deeper and huskier than usual. “I, I’m going to go, though. I think – Thanks, Blake.”

 

He keeps staring, only moving when he realizes she’s about to drive away and her jacket’s still on his floor. Blake’s a little out of breath when he reaches her car, but it’s nothing to how he feels when she winds the window down, takes the jacket off him, and puts a hand on the back his neck to pull his head down for another kiss.

 

“And good night to me,” she says on a slightly shocked laugh when her lips leave his yet again. “A really good night to me.”

 

He sends her an email five minutes after watching her drive away, a ridiculously blunt and honest detailing of what actually happened to end his marriage. And if he uses some of that space to tell her how amazing he thinks she is, how much he admires her and is thankful for her friendship, he’s totally allowed.

 

And if he ends the email by telling Gwen he would _love_ to see her again before they start back up at The Voice, that even a phone call (“I miss your laugh already) would be heaven, that’s just between him and her.


End file.
